Research in Ireland

The research landscape in Ireland has been transformed over the last decade. Through continued investment, we have seen research expenditure levels in the country more than double in the last decade. The increased levels of investment in research have helped attract leading researchers to our Universities, enabled the training of highly skilled graduates and installed the world-class facilities required for cutting edge research.

The return on this investment can be seen in a number of areas. The numbers of skilled graduates emerging from our universities is increasing steadily in line with the Government objective to double PhD graduate numbers by 2013. Both the number and quality of publications by Irish research groups has increased in the last decade. Output of scientific journal articles has more than doubled and, in parallel, Ireland’s citation ranking, a measure of quality, increasing from 34th to 19th globally.